Synopsis for "Proof Through the Night"

Shangri-La is under attack. The Crusaders, a U.S. military strike force (under the control of the Dynamic Family) is flying in ‘’en masse’’ to destroy buildings, kill citizens, and essentially level the city. Led to the scene by Dynamic Forces micro-transmitters which were secretly placed on Black Terror’s uniform, the Crusaders wreak havoc as the vastly outnumbered heroes (Green Lama, Black Terror, and Fighting Yank) struggle to stop them.

In a Middle Eastern bazaar, Samson tells Scarab the tale of how he lost his eyes. Samson was among the heroes who’d gone on a peace mission to Kokura, Japan, a mission gone horribly wrong. Kokura had been slated as the target of the second atomic bomb in 1945, so the costumed mystery men travelled there to convince the Japanese to surrender before the bomb could be dropped. The mission instead became a battle which created so much smoke and dust that the U.S. military switched the bomb’s target to Nagasaki instead. Samson flew off from Kokura to intercept the bombing mission. Arriving too late to prevent the bomb’s deployment, Samson is caught in the air burst and the blast literally melts his eyes.

In Paris, the mute mystery man uses a pad and pencil to introduce himself to his new ally Justine, a French law enforcement anti-terrorism operative. On the pad, he writes the word “Devil”.

More heroes released from the urn are popping up around the globe. In California, The Flame runs to the seashore, leaving a path of burning devastation in his wake. Placing his flame pistol to his head, he’s about to commit suicide when a sudden tidal wave hits the beach and stops him. The wave is caused by his old friend Hydro who has also recently been released from the urn.

The scene shifts to Asia, where a disoriented, amnesiac Masquerade wanders the streets of a town in which the residents have been afflicted by a mysterious plague. There she encounters her former ally and lover V-Man, who is apparently the plagues’s unwitting source; just after they meet, Masquerade fces breaks out in angry red boils.

Mr. Face and a nameless companion sit drinking in a Mexican cantina. In the 1940’s, Mr. Face was just an unpowered adventurer in a fright mask, but his time in the urn has transformed him (as it did many of his fellow mystery men): now his mask causes others to experience their worst fears. As the village’s inhabitants run screaming through the streets outside, Mr. Face and his drinking buddy confess their own worst fears. The nameless companion fears falling “off the wagon” back into alcoholism. Mr. Face’s fear has already come true: he can’t remove the mask.

In Shangri-La, the fight is going badly for the heroes. The city is dying; snow falls in Shangri-La for the first time in thousands of years. Green Lama’s friend and manservant Tsarong is fried by a Crusader ray blast, while another Crusader burns a gaping hole in Fighting Yank’s chest (which matches the hole Black Terror punched in the chest of Dynamic Man). Yank’s power cloak keeps him alive, but he’s left behind as Green Lama uses one of his meta-natural “leaf piles” to transport the heroes back to New York. After the departure Fighting Yank falls face first into the snow as The American Spirit flutters down and covers him like a star-spangled shroud.

Notes

This issue also contains a two-page spread of full color character designs by Alex Ross.

Trivia

What was later known as the “Atomic Dome” is pictured in the background in two panels as Samson touches down in Nagasaki. The Dome is located in Hiroshima, not Nagasaki.

The observation on page 1 that "Almost half of the heroes who fought in the last great war found their power in Shangri-la" is a nod to the fact that a disproportionately high number of Golden Age heroes were of magical/mystical origin, and many of them were granted their powers through an association with Tibetan monks.